The Red Cross
monthly breakdown of cases
and deaths indicate that the case fatality rate for Marburg was
greater than 99% at the end of March. For the first four months
of the outbreak (Oct 2004 - January 2005), there were 34 cases and 34
deaths for a case
fatality rate of 100%.

In the month of February there were 31 cases and 30 deaths. It is
not clear if the 1 person alive was discharged or still in the hospital
when the table was compiled. There is no column for discharged
patients, possibly because there were none.

In the month of March there were 53 cases in Uige and 22 more cases in
other provinces. 68 of these 75 patients had died. However,
at the end of March media reports described 7 newly admitted cases,
accounting for the 7
patients listed as alive. Thus, there was no
outcome yet for those 7. Therefore, for known outcomes, assuming
the February patient was discharged, there were 132 deaths among the
133 outcomes for a case fatality ratio of 99.3 %. If the patient
from February has not been discharged, the fatality rate is 100%.

The data also show the dramatic increase in the number of monthly
cases. In January there were 20, 31 in February, and 75 in
March.

However, the case count is growing even faster in April with 35 cases
in the first four days.